All Purpose News and Politics Thread Part IV: The Center Cannot Hold

[KOSLOX]

What. The. Hell.

[BeastieRunner]

Nice stock drop today.

Good thing I'm not retiring.

[GOLGO 13]

...


China adopted a one-child policy in order to curb overpopulation, which led many parents to abort their own daughters, since most families, especially farmers, prefer sons. Of course the policy managed to reduce the overpopulation....

China ended the one child policy in 2015 for a very good reason. Both China & India's male populations outnumber their women by 70 million. They now have millions of men that will never get married much less have sex. Both cultures still highly prize male over females & they will have an epic reckoning very soon.

[InformationGeek]

OH WBE! Got something for you.

It takes a little bit of build up. Earlier today, Bernie Sanders jumped to the defense of Rashida Tlaib when people took her words out of context. A good, noble thing.


Now... responding to him was Joseph Saladino, running for New York District 11. His response...

It is not like the entire Democrat Party platform is based off identity politics or anything...

A stupid thing to say certainly, so I got curious about who this joker was. Turns out, he's a YouTuber named Joey Salads! Typed him into Google and the first thing that pops up...

LIBERALS Support DEATH Penalty for LGBT *EXPOSED*

Not clicking that video. So I dig deeper and well...

Prankster Joey Salads built a YouTube fanbase of millions by asking viewers to like and subscribe to his videos. Now, he’s hoping his fans will send him to Capitol Hill.

Salads, a 25-year-old with more than 4 million subscribers combined on YouTube and Facebook, registered as a Republican candidate in New York’s 11th Congressional District in late April. The YouTube prankster, whose real name is Joseph Saladino, appears to be the first YouTube star ever to run for office. But he doesn’t think he’s going to be the last.

“You’re going to see a lot more people who are popular on social media run for office,” said Salads. “We’ve already got half the work done.”

In preparation for a campaign for the Staten Island seat now held by freshman Rep. Max Rose (D), Salads has stored up what he describes as a year-and-a-half of prank videos so he won’t be interrupted on the campaign trail.

He’s also made his pranks more political. In his latest video, ”MURDERER gets VOTING RIGHTS from DEMOCRATS! (Social Experiment),” Salads tests whether Washington tourists will sign a petition allowing a murderer to cast a ballot.

Like many YouTube stars, Salads has plenty of old content to be ashamed about—clips that could now be turned into opposition research.

Salads rose to prominence on YouTube with a series of bizarre prank and self-described “social experiment” videos that seemed obviously staged. Salads’ videos made him a target for YouTube comedians, who made him a laughingstock on the platform over his staged videos and awkward delivery.

Much of Salads’ online fame comes from his series of racist “hood pranks” videos. In the videos, black people on the street are presented as disportionately emotional and aggressive, attacking Salads for no reason.

In one video, for example, Salads holds up a “Black Lives Matter” sign in a white neighborhood without any problems. When he takes an “All Lives Matter” sign into a black neighborhood, though, passers-by accost him immediately.

"As you can see, black people got really emotional,” Salads said in the video.

Salads now admits that some of his videos were fake and that others were “half-fake.” His string of staged videos came to an end in October 2016, when he published a video that purported to test whether a car with Trump stickers would be vandalized in a black neighborhood.

In the video, a group of black men angry at Donald Trump descend on the car, smashing its windows and ripping off the Trump stickers.

“As you can see from this video, the black community is very violent towards Trump and his supporters,” Salads said in the video.

The segment went viral in conservative media, earning a top spot on the Drudge Report. But an onlooker who had recognized Salads filmed the entire scene from a different angle, posting video that showed the “vandals” had been in cahoots with Salads the entire time.

So WBE, good enough for a profile?

[numberthirty]

OH WBE! Got something for you.

It takes a little bit of build up. Earlier today, Bernie Sanders jumped to the defense of Rashida Tlaib when people took her words out of context. A good, noble thing.

To her credit, Pelosi did the same a very short while after Sanders.

[Gryphon]

someone filmed an antiisrael video outside my synagogue calling for protests....there will now have to be a police prescence going forward at the synagouge

[Tami]

Pentagon will pull money from ballistic missile and surveillance plane programs to fund border wall

Weaken our defenses to build a wall ... now how does that make any sense?

[mathew101281]

How do we pull our country out of this current situation?

[worstblogever]

OH WBE! Got something for you.

It takes a little bit of build up. Earlier today, Bernie Sanders jumped to the defense of Rashida Tlaib when people took her words out of context. A good, noble thing.


Now... responding to him was Joseph Saladino, running for New York District 11. His response...



A stupid thing to say certainly, so I got curious about who this joker was. Turns out, he's a YouTuber named Joey Salads! Typed him into Google and the first thing that pops up...



Not clicking that video. So I dig deeper and well...


So WBE, good enough for a profile?

Rest assured, Joey Salads is in the queue.

[Tendrin]

Rest assured, Joey Salads is in the queue.

Just be glad you're not British and have to profile Sargon of Akkad.

The man approached him in Truro and tried to throw a milkshake at him.
Supporters of Mr Benjamin restrained the protester and forced him to the ground, before he walked away.

The incident comes after far-right activist Tommy Robinson was twice hit by milkshakes while campaigning.
Mr Benjamin, a YouTube personality who calls himself Sargon of Akkad, is a Ukip candidate in the South-West for the European Parliament elections.
He is being investigated by police over a string of comments he made about Ms Phillips.
In 2016 he sent her a tweet saying: "I wouldn't even rape you."

Discussing the supposed joke last month, he added: "I suppose with enough pressure I might cave. But, let's be honest, nobody's got that much beer."
Mr Benjamin claims to be a free-speech activist who makes deliberately shocking statements to demonstrate his point.

I like this trend of milkshaking fascists.

[Gryphon]

Code Pink has been forced out of the Venezuelan embassy they were occupying

[PwrdOn]

China ended the one child policy in 2015 for a very good reason. Both China & India's male populations outnumber their women by 70 million. They now have millions of men that will never get married much less have sex. Both cultures still highly prize male over females & they will have an epic reckoning very soon.

It's less about the gender imbalance and more about the inverted age pyramid, since the issue is not the lack of breeding pairs but rather the unwillingness of women, particular wealthy and well-educated ones, to have children given the expense of doing so. This is also the same problem that much of the developed world is going through right now, though in our case it's not quite as visible because we have plenty of immigrants to plug the gaps, whereas there are hardly people lining up to move to China or India to help even their demographic imbalances.

Still though I find it rather troubling that any discussion of population demography ultimately leads to the conclusion that not enough of the "right" people are being born and too many of the "wrong" people are, whether this is coming from a racial angle, like the anti-abortion or anti-immigrant activists take, or a socioeconomic one, exemplified by the plot of Idiocracy. Ultimately a sustainable solution will require sharing the burden of raising kids and taking care of the elderly as a societal function, rather than making it the responsibility of immediate family. This will make a lot more sense in the long term than ham handedly throwing subsidies at some people to encourage them to have more kids, while making it as difficult as possible for others to do the same.

How do we pull our country out of this current situation?

Well the current situation is just revealing an underlying rot in our society that we've been willfully blind to for too long. We can't hope to just ignore it and make things like they used to be, we have to take on the problem head on and really try to fix it for once.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Pentagon will pull money from ballistic missile and surveillance plane programs to fund border wall

Weaken our defenses to build a wall ... now how does that make any sense?

We're talking about the Trump White House where sense goes to die a VERY messy death.

====================

Hungary’s Viktor Orbán Is Shunned By European Neighbors, Finds Love From Trump

Orbán has attacked the judiciary, taken over the free press and led anti-Semitic assaults, including against a major university, but Trump praised him lavishly. Caramel Caligula sure loves dictators, mainly because he wants to BE one.

**********

Trump Finally Switches Up His Lie That China Pays Tariffs To The U.S. Treasury

Instead, he falsely claimed that tariffs boost America’s GDP. And people elected this fool because he was such a successful businessman? Seriously?

**********

Bayer Must Pay $2 Billion To Couple In Roundup Cancer Trial

In litigation against the company, a California jury awarded the plaintiffs who said they contracted cancer from the weed killer. The plaintiffs won't see a fraction of that award, but it puts Bayer on notice about their having hidden the truth about the dangers of their product.

**********

Female Film Workers In Georgia Ask Hollywood Not To Boycott Over Anti-Abortion Law

Some filmmakers said they won’t work in the state after the governor signed a “heartbeat bill.” I wonder if Georgia's governor took that into account, and millions the state could lose as a result when he signed that foolish bill? NAAAAAAHHHHH!

**********

Young Child In Hot Car With 6 Others Calls 911 For Help

Seven kids were stuck in a car with the windows rolled up while a woman shopped at a Maryland mall, authorities say. This sort of inhumane **** goes on from coast to coast. Irresponsible parents should be jailed for putting their kids at risk like that.

[worstblogever]

It was on this date in 2015, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” had a profile of Jeffrey Wood, a former member of the Wisconsin State Assembly who over the course of several years, was arrested for DUI on five separate occasions. In one incident, he flipped his vehicle, and police arriving on scene found him trapped inside, in possession of marijuana. That sort of hinders Wood’s argument made as Republican to support the drug testing of welfare recipients, when you think about it. At least he’s not a hypocrite on other legislation he supported, like stricter Voter ID laws or trying to ban same sex marriage, he’s just terrible for it. As Wood was charged and convicted of felony offenses and ended up with a 9 month prison sentence, a political comeback for him seems pretty unlikely.

On this date in 2016, 2017, and 2018, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” presented profiles of Jesse Kremer, a member of the Wisconsin State Assembly who, in spite of having first been elected in 2014, has quickly garnered our attention for the myriad of extremist bills he’s submitted. We’ve already seen him push for anti-choice extremism, in the form of a ban on abortion at 20 weeks, his push to allow for the concealed carry of firearms in schools to prevent hypothetical “terrorist attacks”, or his repeated calls for transphobic bathroom bills, which he has repeatedly submitted since being elected. Kremer is closely allied with Julaine Appling, the head of the Wisconsin Family Action group, a Pro-Life and anti-LGBT rights group that has warned the legalization of same sex marriage could lead to adult-child covenants. Kremer and Appling insist that transphobic bathroom bills are in no way discriminatory and have been caught exchanging e-mails that show they’re going out of their way to make more experienced legislators look like “the bad guy” if they’re afraid to push it forward based on their fearmongering of transgendered citizens. Kremer has gone far enough to insist that “the real war on women” is the fact that transgendered attackers are being allowed to go into the wrong restroom and attack women and pretending that anyone who opposes the bills are allowing the attacks (which aren’t based in reality) to continue. After Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker failed to deliver on his promise that Wisconsin would see 250,000 new jobs produced under his leadership, critics took him to task for it. Rushing to his defense came Jesse Kremer, who explained that the real problem behind the job crisis wasn’t a failure of opportunities (which it is), but instead, the blame lies on “entitled graduating college students” seeking too much pay and those on public assistance who feel getting a job will “cut into their benefits”. Kremer has also supported the drug testing of welfare recipients, stricter Voter ID laws to combat the statistically non-existent problem of “in person voter fraud” at the cost of disenfranchising hundreds of thousands of voters and also decided there was too much “rampant fraud” happening with EBT cards by people on public assistance, so he sponsored legislation to require Photo Identification for when people want to use them to be able to buy food to curtail his imagined abuse. This in spite of the fact that the USDA warns that such measures would stop family members who the food is also supposed to go to can’t use the card. Y’know, say if a single mother sends a teen to the store on her behalf… no food for you, get out to the store yourself, mom! Kremer also tried to exploit the mass shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, as proof that "Our country has been torn apart by President Obama's divisive racism, hatred of Christianity and lambasting of the military and law enforcement” In 2017, Kremer, he completely embarrassed himself by stating his “Biblical belief” that the Earth is only 6,000 years old. Kremer opted to not run for re-election in 2018, likely because the Wisconsin GOP preferred a candidate that wasn’t bats*** crazy. Thus, we’ll retire his CSGOPOTD profile at this time and go ahead and take a look at a different kooky Republican today instead. (Current crazy/stupid scoreboard, is now 752-40, since this was established in July 2014.)


Burt Minor
Welcome to the 752nd original “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” profile, where today we’ll be taking a look at Burt Minor, a candidate for the Illinois House of Representatives in 2018, who was trying to represent District 42 in that body. His candidacy, however, was damaged from a member of his own party, as Erika Harold, a GOP candidate for Illinois Attorney general, went public with the fact that Minor had asked her if she was a “lesbo” and used the N-word around her (and yes, she is African-American) after she announced her own candidacy. Harold let Minor know, that no one should ever use that word to express her discomfort. He repeated it. So she repeated her warning, and he said it a third time, as if he was trying to summon some sort of racist Beetlejuice. Once Harold made Minor’s comments public knowledge, he claimed his comments were “misinterpreted” and tried to play the victim.

Burt Minor lost in the GOP Primary, only getting 22% of the vote. We’re not sure if this will be his only run for the state legislature or not.

[aja_christopher]

How do we pull our country out of this current situation?

Focusing on the protection of "minority" voting rights would help -- if it weren't for organized Republican gerrymandering and voter suppression, we wouldn't be where we are today.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_..._United_States

Bush wouldn't have even been president, much less Trump, and both the House and Senate would be a lot less Republican as a whole.

Unfortunately, we are now in a situation where only the Republicans (via impeachment) can remove Trump from office.

-----
"Barr Appoints Prosecutor to Examine Russia Probe Origins"

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/...rigins-1319878

"North Korea Demands Return of Cargo Ship Seized by U.S."

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/14/w...ship-coal.html

"Trump heats up yet another global crisis by escalating China trade war"

https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/10/polit...ran/index.html

"They're not going to be happy.' Trump threatens Iran over reports of sabotaged oil tankers"



https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...lf/1191755001/